


I’m Looking In

by TornThorn



Category: Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: Attempted Sexual Assault, Bad Parenting, Bisexual Trini Kwan, Canon Autistic Character, Chronic Illness, Demisexual Billy Cranston, Friendship/Love, Mention of Racism, OT5, Passive Suicide Ideation, Poly Because Power Rangers, Polyamory, Two Inappropriate Spanish Terms for Lesbians, Zack Taylor & Trini are Bros, mentions of bullying, unsupportive parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 18:19:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10769766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TornThorn/pseuds/TornThorn
Summary: Trini and Zack try to get comfortable with having people to rely on, people they love.





	I’m Looking In

****Once upon a time, Trini had believed her mama would love her no matter what. Sure, they’d had disagreements from the time Trini was five and had started insisting on wearing pants instead of dresses to kindergarten. And it wasn’t like Trini had ever _hidden_ that she liked girls and boys. Or that she wasn’t interested in a bunch of the traditionally feminine things that Mama loved - like cooking or sewing or owning fifteen pairs of shoes.

It was strange to her that her memories of Papa were so different than her memories of Mama. Papa had bought her hiking boots and gotten good at braiding Trini’s hair out of the way when they went on “adventures” and smiled when his eight-year-old daughter had introduced her school table-partner as her girlfriend. He signed her up for her first self-defense course, and let her join a soccer team despite Mama’s protests. He always encouraged her to be happy, “whatever that means to you, _corazon_.”

After Papa died, Mama changed. She had always been the strict parent at home, but that got dialed up to eleven. Everything she and Trini used to disagree about suddenly became insurmountable and _wrong_. Arguments turned into blowouts, and any dispute to Mama’s expectations was treated like a challenge of her authority.

When Mama remarried the very next year, then pulled Trini aside and told her they would both be taking on her new husband’s last name, Trini swore never to forgive her. It was like Mama was trying to pretend Papa had never existed.

Truthfully, Trini liked Henry. He was a kind man who tried so hard to be a father-figure, while doing his best to make it clear he wasn’t trying to replace Papa. (The older she got, the more self-help books she guessed he’d read about step-parenting prior to the marriage.)

And without Henry, she wouldn’t have Mickey and Jeremy. They were snot-nosed brats who Mama let get away with a hell of a lot more than Trini, but they also thought their big sister was the coolest, toughest person on planet earth.

The first big split between her and Mama, after the marriage, came three years ago. They didn’t have any family in the states, and they never seemed to end up living anywhere with any kind of latino community, so they didn’t have “cousins” around either. When Mama brought up Trini’s quinceañera, Trini asked if they could get her a secondhand car for her next birthday instead.

The truth was, Trini didn’t want the poofy dress or the expensive party. She’d never dreamed of being a princess, and she didn’t want to invite a bunch of her asshole classmates to come sneer at her family’s culture. (The majority of the students at Columbus Cave High had gone to special lengths to make it clear her race and sexuality were unforgivable to them. Trini didn’t miss that tiny, backwards city. Or Arizona in general, really.)

Despite Trini wanting nothing to do with a quinceañera, Mama had gone ahead and started collecting pamphlets for venues and caterers, dragging Trini to one dress shop after another, set a tentative date and made an appointment at a local salon for Trini’s hair and nails and makeup.

The teen’s response may have been a little dramatic. There had been a screaming match that devolved into Trini telling Mama that she was wasting her money, since Trini would rather run away than have the party, and ended when the teen called her mother a selfish, controlling bitch, and Mama slapped her.

A week later, their unspoken Cold War was broken when Mama caught Trini making out with a pretty blonde named Elise. Mama lost it, yelling that Trini was “out of control” and was acting like a “ _cachapera tortera_ ”, and that she and Henry would be moving the family to get Trini away from “bad influences”.

Mama was a good nurse with enough experience and references to get a job almost anywhere, and Henry was a web designer who worked from home. It took less than twelve weeks before they were hauling cardboard boxes into a new house in a new city.

The peace there lasted about eight months, until Mama found out through a mom at an elementary school PTA meeting that Trini had been seen around town holding hands with a couple, town sweetheart 18-year-old Deborah Beckstrom and her no-good boyfriend, 20-year-old college dropout and known pothead Alex Kryke.

Their family had practice now, so this panic-driven move only took five weeks. Then they were two states over and Mama had started randomly drug testing Trini.

And this time, Trini tried. She worked hard in school and wore skirts. She helped with meals and didn’t join any sports teams. She didn’t fight it when Mama told her she was too young to understand her sexuality, and even let Mama set her up with the son of a friend from the hospital.

For the first few months, Mateo was fine. Sometimes he would say mean shit about other girls, which Trini hated, or reference Trini’s “past” as a _maricona_. But Trini could say cruel things without thinking, too.

Except eventually his remarks were about her body type. And he started pressuring her to go farther than the chaste kisses and hand holding they’d engaged in so far. He kept trying to slip her tongue when they kissed goodnight. Or they would go to a movie, and he would slide his hand under her skirt. Or they’d be studying in his room and he’d try to pull her down on the bed and grab her tits.

She told him to stop, threatened to break up with him, and he mostly backed off, although the comments about her being a fat, frigid bitch and how all his friends’ girlfriends put out got a lot more frequent.

It came to a head when they went to a party and he kept handing her drinks. He’d probably been aiming to get her blackout drunk, but Trini hadn’t always been her mama’s angel, and as a result her alcohol tolerance was higher than anyone expected.

When she was dizzy enough to be staggering a little, Mateo steered her into an empty bedroom. He shoved her down onto the pastel pink comforter and started hiking up her dress with one hand, while going for her zipper with the other.

She broke his nose, and nearly snapped his wrist, then cried the entire walk home.

The next morning, Mama dragged her out of bed demanding to know why she got a call from Mrs. Reyes, Mateo’s mother, about Trini unjustifiably attacking the boy. Trini tried to explain, and Mama talked right over her about how embarrassing it was going to be working with Nurse Reyes, when everyone would hear and know that her daughter was erratically violent. How ashamed she would be when she next faced the other woman, and how Trini would have to apologize to Mateo and Mrs. Reyes.

And Trini gave up. She stopped trying. She went back to her jeans and hiking boots and beanies. She avoided everyone at school, stopped going to any and all social events, let her grades drop. She bought a pair of nice headphones, plugged them in and turned on music that drowned out the world. She took up yoga (which one of her earliest girlfriends had sworn by), since asking Mama if she could sign up for self-defense classes again would go nowhere. And she refused to say sorry to Mateo.

Trini talked to Jeremy and Mickey. She talked to Henry. But if Mama came in the room, Trini left or went mute. If Mama asked a question, Trini wouldn’t say a word.

It took a few weeks before Mama came to the conclusion that another move would fix the problem, which led them to Angel Grove.

It didn’t help.

* * *

 According to Mom, Zack’s dad had been a nice guy. He just “wasn’t ready to settle down” when Mom got pregnant.

It had taken less than 24 hours after Mom had told the guy she was pregnant that he split town. And for most of his childhood, Zack didn’t really care. Mom was his best friend and his hero. When other kids mocked him about not having a father, Zack shrugged it off. Mom was better than any of their dads. She taught him Mandarin and chess and how to cook. Despite working full time, she still made it to every class event and volunteered on field trips and came to all his Little League games. They were happy, and Zack didn’t worry about anything, because no matter what, Mom was around to fix things.

He was twelve when Mom got sick. At first, she kept going to work, despite being pale and dizzy. She brushed off his questions and concerns, saying it was just a cold. In a week, she would better.

Instead, she got worse.

Zack begged her to go to the doctor, but she kept putting it off. Doctors were expensive, she explained, and she could whip up some of her mother’s herbal remedies and be fine in the morning.

Eventually it got bad enough that she collapsed at work. Her boss rode along in the ambulance, and the news from the doctors wasn’t good. It wasn’t the flu, it was a chronic illness, and while it could be managed with the correct medication, realistically she had anywhere from five to ten years left before it took her life.

That was when Zack started hating the father he never knew, along with the rest of the world. Because there was no one to help.

Mom’s boss was a good guy who tried to figure out a way for Mom to continue her job as a translator while bedridden. The only option was translating transcripts, and it didn’t pay very well. Plus, the amount Mom could do in a single sitting was limited. The government also offered a stipend, enough money for a portion of the necessary meds. Altogether, it was barely enough. It took two months before Mom admitted they couldn’t keep living the way they had. She sold the house, the one she’d saved since her first job and put her entire inheritance toward. And they downgraded to a little two bedroom place. Then an apartment. Then, when they still weren’t making ends meet, they moved to a small nearby town with a trailer park, Angel Grove.

The first day at the middle school, one of the kids in gym called Zack trailer trash. It was the first time he got detention, and it wasn’t going to be the last.

He spent the next five years giving up on friends and the idea of a future. Who cared about football games or parties or who was dating who when his mom’s life was stamped with an expiration date? He got reckless, and he knew it. Mom worried about how easy it was for Zack to do stupid things, just to feel the thrill of “maybe I won’t outlive her”. He wasn’t suicidal, exactly. But if he got hit by a bus, the only thing he’d regret was that Mom wouldn’t have anyone to take care of her.

Every night, the fear of losing Mom, of going to sleep and waking up to find she’d stopped breathing sometime in between, grew. It got to the point that he would lie on his pull-out bed, and the dread would build up in the trailer, filling the space and pressing against him until it was hard to get any air.

He would grab his shoes and a jacket, and then start running. He never meant to go anywhere in particular, and wasn’t sure why he kept ending up at the quarry. Maybe because it was a restricted area, and fuck this town and its rules and the self-righteous, judgmental people who filled it. Or maybe it was because the place was huge and empty, and it felt easier to breathe out in the open.

It reached the point where, if he wasn’t picking up shifts stocking shelves at the local grocery store, or at home making Mom food and getting her to take her pills, he was out there. He started skipping class to sit on top of an old, broken down train car. What did school matter when, whether tomorrow or in five years, his world was going to end anyway?

He was aware Mom still got calls from the administration at AGHS, and she was disappointed that there was a good possibility he wouldn’t graduate. She’d been the first generation in her family to get a college degree, and now he was failing to live up to that. But why should he waste eight hours of his day learning crap that wouldn’t help her, surrounded by kids acting fake who cared about popularity more than anything important?

Zack got used to being the only person out at the quarry, besides the machines and the workers. Occasionally he caught sight of that weird kid, Billy Cranston, creeping around at night. Or the cheerleader, Kimberly Hart, out hiking the trails above the quarry.

The real surprise was when he noticed movement up on the cliffs. Some girl he didn’t recognize stood on top of a bolder, right at the edge, and started doing yoga stretches. It became normal for him to take a look around at about 4 PM, a little after the high school got out for the day. And like clockwork, there she was, headphones and backpack on, shifting smoothly from one pose to the next.

She was crazy, Zack decided. But then, so was he.

* * *

 After everything, after explosion and car crashes and training, Alpha and Zordon and aliens, Billy dying then coming back, attack rocks and Rita and Goldar and protecting the goddamn Krispy Kreme- after becoming friendly, then friends, then people they would sacrifice their lives for- After all that, going back to normal life was weird.

They were Power Rangers. The superheroes Billy kept talking about. And they were friends. It said a lot that the latter freaked Trini and Zack out more than the former, although Zack was good at pretending not to be bothered. They had both gotten used to being alone. To it being them against the world. Having three reasonably sane people offering support was eerie.

Jason started coming by the trailer in the morning and dragging Zack to school. Kim would offer Trini a place to hang out after class if the girl didn’t want to go home. Billy got everyone’s phone number and started a group text, so they were basically always in contact.

It took some getting used to, the idea that they could call for help or just company and someone would actually answer. Zack and Trini ended up hanging out a lot, needing at least one person who understood how odd it felt.

Kim and Jason were both disgraced, former popular kids. They gravitated together easily. And while people might assume Billy had trouble making friends because of his autism, really he had a huge group of people who thought he was awesome. The fact that they were mostly stereotypical geeks didn’t change how much they seemed to adore Billy. (Billy was universally loved, besides the bullies and a few of the top tier kids who looked down on everyone.)

Sometimes, when they were all hanging out at the fire pit, roasting marshmallows or telling stories or staring up at the stars and wondering aloud how many species of aliens were out there, Trini and Zack would get caught up in the feeling of “How is this possible? How am I so comfortable with these people?” and would instinctively glance over at each other in confusion.

Then Kim and Jason kissed, and they were terrified it was all going to go to pot if the pair ended up fighting or breaking up. Trini and Zack were scared of their feelings for each other, and for the rest of their teammates. Because if the whole Power Rangers thing was impossible, falling for four other people felt even crazier.

And they couldn’t pretend it wasn’t love. It definitely was.

Zack loved the way Kim was the first to jump, and how Billy’s mind was always twelve steps ahead of the rest of them, and Jason’s fierce devotion to his team, and Trini’s caustic reaction to anyone trying to start shit. He loved Jason’s steady grip, and the tilt of Trini’s eyebrow, and Billy’s casual rambling, and Kim’s graceful steps.

Trini loved Billy’s endless, open affection. She loved Kim’s sharp words. She loved Zack’s reckless willingness to try. She loved Jason’s inability to back down. And Trini loved when Zack would pull her in under his arm and lean his weight on her shoulder, or Jason would ask her for help with a form and let her direct his hips and foot placement, or Kim would lie beside her on the floor and snuggle her head against Trini’s collarbone, or Billy, who didn’t like people touching him except on his terms, would reach out and carefully hug her, always a second from backing away but also willing to hold on.

It turned out, after a few awkward days, that they didn’t need to worry. Billy was the one who matter-of-factly pointed out they were all in love with each other. He wasn’t comfortable with the idea of sex, wasn’t sure if he ever would be, but that didn’t mean they weren’t all together. And for all he claimed he didn’t understand social interaction, they trusted Billy to see what the rest of them couldn’t. He had always been the smart one.

It was untenable, five stupid teens in some kind of undefined, amorphous relationship. They trained together and pulled stupid pranks together and studied together. They shared lives and gentle kisses and, when they wanted to, beds. Sometimes for sleep, sometimes for more.

They knew their classmates were watching them in confusion, but the weird group that had come out of nowhere was less interesting than the aftermath of the five superheroes turning into a huge robot and fighting a monster made out of gold.

They knew that some of their parents were uncertain about the dynamic between the five (Trini’s mama didn’t understand and didn’t want to, Jason’s dad was reserving judgement, and Kim’s parents were the ones most likely to tell her she needed to find better friends), while some (Mrs. Cranston and Jason’s mom and Henry) were just glad their kids seemed happy.

Zack’s mom, in particular, was over the moon. Was what her son had with his four partners unusual? Absolutely. Did she care? He was going to school and on track for graduation. He had somewhere to go besides an unsafe quarry when he went wandering at night. He was planning for the future. He was smiling, wide and real, again. No, she didn’t care.

And sure, this five-part relationship didn’t fix everything. Jason’s scholarship prospects and his interactions with his dad were still a mess. Kim was still shunned around school. Billy still missed his dad. Trini’s mother still refused to accept her daughter’s orientation. Zack’s mom was still sick, and never going to get better.

But they had superpowers and a duty to protect the Zeo Crystal. They had classes and training and campfires under the stars. And they had each other.

It was a start.

**Author's Note:**

> According to the official press releases, Trini's last name is still Kwan. I've chosen to make the man we see with her family a step-father, and have Kwan be his last name.


End file.
